


on the wind of the morning

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: draco dormiens nunquam titillandus [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Primeval
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, the wizarding world post-1998 is full of child soldiers and traumatised Muggleborns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 10:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8368495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Abby Maitland lives to see the morning after the Battle of Hogwarts.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Primeval_Denial October monthly challenge – the Ursula K. Le Guin quote. Set before an enormous Harry Potter/Primeval crossover, but all you need to know to read this is that Abby Maitland was a Muggleborn student who spent the 1997-98 school year on the run and fought at the Battle of Hogwarts. Thanks to Fred for the beta! :)

_I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons **on the wind of morning**. – Ursula K. Le Guin._

 

            Abby Maitland is sitting on one of the Ravenclaw tables, drinking coffee as if it tastes right. It doesn’t. Abby had barely grown accustomed to the rich, thick coffee the house-elves made and let fifth-years and above have with breakfast when she went on the run. Over the last year she’s got a real taste for coffee – but it’s always been cheap instant, burnt and hot on the back of her tongue. You drank it to feel alive and stay awake, so that your spells were on target when the Death Eaters came to get you.

 

            This is proper coffee. Abby vaguely remembers the taste, but it’s still… odd, as odd as a school that’s a battleground, as strange as her classmates dead on the floor. Wizards and witches live a long time, unless they’re killed facing down a magical fascist. Abby doesn’t know even half of the people in the Great Hall, though she recognises some by sight, and she knows the voices of the little group broadcasting the news of the victory on Potterwatch in a nearby corner. A few others she has to squint at, their faces vaguely familiar but strange without their school uniforms. There are joyous reunions happening, which sometimes helps.

 

            Abby tugs the cuffs of her hoodie over her hands, one after another. They are threadbare and grubby. Abby hasn’t bought new clothes since last summer; hasn’t been able to mend these for months, even though she knew it would attract more attention when she was on the run. People notice a pretty little blonde girl with haunted eyes and torn clothes. But she was never much hand with mending charms, and the one boy she knew who was got caught by the Snatchers in February. She wonders if he’s still alive.

 

            Abby misses her blue-and-bronze tie, her black robes, her itchy grey woollen jumper. She even misses the stupid pointy hat. Being here in dirty jeans and trainers with a hole in and a ripped hoodie feels as wrong as the coffee tastes.

 

            She sets her coffee down for a moment and crosses her arms over her chest, rocks back and forward for a second. She’s having trouble believing that the war is over. She fought in the courtyard; she was there when Lord Voldemort’s body hit the ground. She saw the look on Harry Potter’s face as that collection of dusty robes and spite fell to the floor; there was exhaustion and disbelief in that thin, ill-fed face, behind the burgeoning relief. She looks at Hermione Granger across the room, accepting congratulations and comfort with an absent smile and worried eyes, and Abby thinks that she’s probably not the only one who doesn’t quite believe the war is over.

 

            Suddenly, the Great Hall feels too enclosed. It’s absurd: the windows are full of holes and the doors flung wide, and the Great Hall is big enough to seat two thousand anyway. But Abby has learned not to argue with the sense that tells her stone walls are closing in, and so she picks up her coffee and goes.

 

            On her way one of the Order stops her, and silently puts a croissant from a tray of steaming breakfast food into her free hand. Her hand’s filthy, so the croissant’s instantly dirty, but Abby has eaten worse lately, and has the iron digestion to prove it. The croissant’s hot and drizzled with chocolate and it smells better than anything Abby can remember eating. She takes it and thanks the witch, whose plum robes are spattered with something Abby could probably name if she put her mind to it. Abby’s voice comes out too loud, and she winces.

 

            She takes the chocolate croissant outside into the courtyard, where there are piles of rubble, fallen stone knights, and Voldemort’s body, uncovered and shrivelled in death. Professor McGonagall is standing guard over it; Abby nearly trips over Professor Flitwick as he hurries past her.

 

            “Oh, I am sorry, my dear, my mistake,” he says, a quick flick of his wand catching her before her can fall. Even her Head of House has to look twice at her to recognise her now, but Professor Flitwick looks twice, and he touches her arm, very gently. “Miss Maitland, isn’t it?”

 

            Abby clears her throat. “Yes, professor. It’s good to see you’re… well.”

 

            _Alive_ , she means.

 

            “I’m very glad to see you, too, Miss Maitland.” Professor Flitwick says it as if he remembers that she’s Muggleborn and can guess what she has suffered. He probably can, probably counted the empty beds in his House at the beginning of this year, tallied the names that would no longer respond if he called. She watches him hurry on ahead to Professor McGonagall, watches her conjure a heavy cloak – some kind of very dark plaid – and Professor Flitwick levitate the mortal remains of a mass-murderer. Professor McGonagall casts the cloak over the miserable bundle of rags and bones, hiding it from sight.

 

            It makes sense to get the body out of the way. And maybe it’s fortunate that Abby doesn’t have a free hand for her wand at the moment, because she is suddenly, blindingly, burningly angry, angry in a way she wasn’t when she was fighting, angry in a way she hasn’t had time to be for a year. For a long time, she’s only been afraid.

 

            There’s a little group of people perched on some rubble. Abby goes over to join them, finds herself a seat on a piece of stone sheared smooth by some spell. She knows them: some because they’re Ravenclaws, some because they’re also frightened Muggleborns on the run.

 

            _They **were** frightened Muggleborns on the run_ , Abby corrects herself - and when Niall Richards spits after Voldemort’s body as it disappears around the corner, hopefully to be taken somewhere quiet and well-guarded by a discreet side door, Abby laughs. She’s a little scared of Niall, who’s as Muggleborn as she is, a better duellist than she is, and far more talented with a knife than she is; still, she can’t say she was never grateful to have him around. She travelled around an obscure bit of Wales for three months with him, perpetually two steps ahead of a gang of Snatchers, and Abby slept better knowing he was near the door with a knife in his hand than she did at any other time.

 

            “Hush,” Cho Chang says, though she’s smiling vindictively too, and Abby falls silent, answering to Cho’s authority the way she did when she was a scared first-year. Niall, who’s never been scared of anything, gives the older girl a mischievous grin.

 

            “De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” Amina Qureshi says thoughtfully, and puts two middle fingers up at the trailing, disappearing tail of the dark covering plaid. Professor McGonagall glances back at her, and Amina squeaks and almost falls backwards off the pile of rubble.

 

            Everyone laughs, and Felix Brunt grabs her before she can really go over backwards. Amina hides her face in her hands, and Abby rips off part of her croissant, passes it to the other girl.

 

            “Professor McGonagall won’t mind,” Abby says. “She’s fair. She knows you meant You-Know-Who.”

 

            Cho Chang nods, and pats Amina’s shoulder consolingly.

 

            They sit in silence for a long time as the day ripens. It was dawn when Voldemort died, grey light curling its fingers into the desperate night. Now the sky is growing duck-egg blue, bright sunlight breaking on faces turned up to it like they’ve never seen sunshine before. From here they can see through the ruins of the ramparts, the scarred approach to the castle. The mist is burning off the Highlands while they watch.

                                                                                                      

            Abby feels strange and her coffee is cold. She gives it to Niall Richards, who will drink pretty much anything.

 

            Cho raises her wand and casts a spell without speaking. Silently, before their eyes, a dragon roars from the end of her wand and spins in the air, wings unfolded, cobalt scales glistening and bronze claws gleaming, the white fire it blasts into the air a triumphal cry. Abby smiles, and Niall laughs; Felix swears, and Amina chokes on a sob, curses Cho and begins to cry.

 

            Abby thinks about the burns on her hands, the chips on her wand, the empty room that used to be hers in a house that was never home, and she doesn’t say anything. This bright morning light feels like a fresh start, and Abby clings to it, to every breath of promise in the pale scudding clouds and the clean sharp breeze.

 

            She will never have to do anything as hard as this again.


End file.
